Silence
by Wagthedog
Summary: A trade deal goes wrong and there are consequences for the Atlanteans. Everyone gets whumped, but mostly Sheppard. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Silence **–_by Wagthedog_

Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I use it all without permission from TPTB.

AN: Rated for some strong imagery here and there.

Thanks to smudgesister for the beta!

* * *

Silence...and then suddenly flashes of light burned a stabbing pattern onto his retinas as the dark forest exploded around him. His head swiveled left and right as he tried to make out shadow and form running through the trees between the blasts. P90 fire erupted to his left, and automatically, he picked up his medical backpack and ran toward the sound, knowing he would find injured in need of help.

He blinked furiously, trying to get the image of the first flash to fade from his eyes so he could see in the darkness between the trees, and he stumbled over something, falling to his knees. One of the expedition's botanists lay on his side in the deep undergrowth, backpack torn and instruments strewn all over the ground.

Beckett turned him over, and the body moved stiffly. He pushed the shredded jacket sleeve up at the wrist, and felt the dry stickiness clinging to the cold skin. A shrapnel charge exploded in the distance, reminding him that not everyone on this planet was as impressed with the technological advances they'd offered in exchange for supplies.

Beckett glanced at the young man's face. He'd barely known him; a fairly new replacement just a few months off the Daedalus. The boy's eyes were open, the corneas glazed over and silver. There was no need to check for a pulse. The physician ran a quick hand across his mouth and grabbed his pack again, taking off.

He dodged stumps and decaying logs, following in the footsteps of Atlantis' own soldiers when he could join in the charge back toward the Stargate. Obeying shouted orders to duck behind trees when required.

A far off scream momentarily clouded his sense of self-preservation, and he darted forward, ignoring the low-hanging tree branches as they whipped across his cheeks.

Beckett crouched and rolled into a deep depression, as somewhere up ahead, sparks streaked from the muzzle of an unseen enemy's weapon as it spit projectiles into the starlit clearing he'd just entered. As his flight came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the forest trench, he landed on something and rolled quickly to the side when he heard a sharp cry of pain. John Sheppard was writhing on the ground, half-conscious, wounds searing in renewed protest by the jostling he'd received from Beckett's unintended collision.

The physician immediately dropped his medical pack to the ground and ripped it open, then leaned back in toward Sheppard. The sights and sounds of the attack receded quickly as Beckett's vision and attention narrowed down to encompass only his patient.

Even in his lethargic state, Sheppard was trying to curl on his side. Beckett pushed him down and made quick work of unbuckling his web belt. The wounded man's belly was riddled with bullet holes, his uniform shirt and the waistband of his pants spattered a gaudy black in the low light, the loose leaves underneath him stained and shiny. As Beckett watched, the Colonel tried to fist a hand in his side to quiet the constant gnawing.

There was just too much blood. It was all over the ground. Sheppard gasped through red-tinged lips, then coughed, and Carson felt something wet hit his face and one of his eyes. He tried to blink the distortion away as he tore open the ruined shirt, letting buttons fly, then fumbled to pull a compress out of his bag. He leaned into the wounds trying to stop the bleeding.

Sheppard cried out in pain, but Beckett kept the pressure on. He eyed the bottle of morphine, but knew it was more important to keep the pressure on the wounds. Beckett's mind was reeling. The need to ease pain and save lives was deeply ingrained, but he knew in the back of his mind that he didn't have the necessary supplies to save the man in his care. The Stargate was so far away, help an impossibility. Still, he reached bloodied fingers toward the radio curled at his ear, looking up as a hand gripped his shoulder. Teyla had joined him in the trench. Not a word passed between them. She simply let her hand linger in silent support as one of Atlantis' jumpers bearing a medical team landed nearby.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

Some folks wanted me to continue this story, which was meant to be a one-parter with no dialogue, so I gave in...

**Chapter 2**

Arms and legs were grabbed in a mad rush toward the jumper's rear compartment, the team not even bothering to place Sheppard on one of the cushioned benches, instead lowering him to the floor, so they would have access from all sides. In his peripheral vision, Beckett saw Ronon pacing back and forth, covered in sweat. The poor man must've run the whole way to the gate like the devil himself was on his heels.

Beckett knew he was speaking, barking out orders, but his team was well seasoned. As the ramp closed behind them, he felt a momentary lurch before the inertial dampeners adjusted to their flight. Several trauma cases had already been torn apart, an O2 mask already covered Sheppard's mouth and nose, and members of his staff were searching for veins to start two large-bore IVs.

Sheppard was just barely holding onto consciousness, but it was still enough to register the biting stick of the needles on top of his extensive abdominal wounds. He tried to pull away as the nurses gripped his arms tighter, searching with grim determination for veins in his collapsing circulatory system to administer the needed fluids.

Teyla knelt to reach for one of his flailing arms to lend support, curling warm finger around his hand in an effort to ease his suffering.

The arm Teyla held stilled for a moment and one needle slid into place, then Sheppard flinched again and bucked as Beckett packed another compress on top of the already saturated one. If the other line couldn't be started, he would have to consider a cut down, or an intraosseous needle. Less preferable options in the field, but as he switched positions with one of the nurses, he could tell that Sheppard's blood loss was extreme. Rapid shallow breaths fogged the O2 mask.

An explosion rocked the jumper, and the medical team flattened themselves across Sheppard's body. As Ronon tumbled across the aisle and hit the bench seat, Sheppard startled and his breath hitched once, then twice. Beckett eyed the intubation kit in the trauma case, and then scurried around, bending to hold Sheppard's head between his bloodied hands. He pleaded and coaxed. He probably even cursed in Gaelic until Sheppard's eyes cracked open and latched on, his brow furrowing, eyes frantic as his oxygen demands overrode his body's dwindling supply of red blood cells.

Another blast and the engines wined, the inertial dampeners cut out and the jumper started to shake and roll. Beckett jammed his left knee into Sheppard's shoulder and grabbed the bench with his opposite hand, trying to ignore the way the drying blood on his fingers made them sticky. He pressed the toes of his hiking sneakers into the floor, grabbing for purchase as he bent low across Sheppard's body, hoping it would be enough to hold his patient steady. A pair of black field boots stumbled beside him as Rodney appeared from somewhere in the forward section, fumbling his way over Ronon's legs and along the rails of the upper equipment storage bins with unsteady hands, a red-tinged bandage wrapped around a ragged tear in the upper sleeve of his black jacket.

The physicist reached for one of the overhead access panels and flipped it down, revealing glowing crystal wafers. With his good arm, he held tight to the upper rail while the jumper rolled again and bucked sideways, his knees slamming painfully into the bench in front of him. With worried eyes, Rodney glanced down at Sheppard, then swiveled around to pull and rearrange the crystals in some unknown configuration that baffled Beckett..

At a shout from the pilot, and another explosion, Rodney was thrown sideways, screeching as his shoulder was almost pulled from its socket. One of his boots hit the trauma kit, sliding it toward Ronon, where the Satedan now braced himself across the aisle. One of the nurses rolled away toward the back of the jumper and skidded to a stop, spouting a few colorful curses of her own as the floor scraped off a bit of skin. Teyla reached for her, and pulled her upright as the jumper finally settled into steady flight.

Beckett heard the comforting sound of the DHD on the forward panel being activated, and then his worst fear was realized as all hell broke loose right before they were claimed by the swirling blue of the wormhole.

**TBC...**hmmm?


	3. Chapter 3

So sorry for the delay in posting this next chapter, college summer sessions are brutal and my beta was on vacation.

**Chapter 3**

Beckett lost all connection with his body as he twisted and turned through the freezing nothingness of the wormhole...then, instead of the expected comfort and warmth of rematerialization and reconnection with the world as it should be, he found himself flying toward the forward section of the jumper, crashing into the back of one of the rear jump seats. His eyes snapped shut and his head whipped back with the force of the impact, and then the breath left his body as a heavy weight crashed into his stomach. Objects flew, rolled and bounced past him, metal groaned and screeched like the brakes of a locomotive on rusted tracks.

When gravity stabilized and he was able to lift his head off of the seat back and open his eyes, the jumper's power was dead, the interior bathed in shadow, and John Sheppard was curled in his lap, coughing up blood. He supported John's head with his arm while he took a quick inventory. The single IV they'd managed to start had been ripped out, the O2 mask torn away, and blood was leaking a gory trail onto the floor from compression bandages that had been thrown into disarray.

Beckett heard a muffled sob and one of his nurse's arms dropped into view on the other side of the bulkhead that separated the benches in the rear compartment from the fore. She must have become airborne in the crash and the thick internal bulkhead was the only thing that kept her from sailing forward to a sure and ugly death. He called to her and received a garbled answer. Two on the Glasgow Coma Scale for verbal responses. Eye and motor responses would have to wait for later.

Ronon had managed to end up crumpled and unconscious against the opposite jump seat, a small trail of blood oozing from a cut beneath one eye. But of McKay, Teyla and the other nurse, there was no sign.

Sheppard's breath caught in his throat and he choked, more blood coating his lips and dripping from the side of his face. The man's very lifeforce leaking out by the second and now he had to worry about aspiration as well. _Dammit to hell! _One or more of the bullets must have perforated Sheppard's stomach or upper GI tract. Beckett furiously scanned his immediate area. No trauma kit, no bandages, no IVs, no oxygen, and no intubation kit. Were they even back on Atlantis? He reached for his radio and it was gone too.

He needed to get up, He needed to get help. He had no way of knowing how many more had been seriously injured in this crash. For all he knew, he could be seriously injured himself and it was just being suppressed beneath a massive surge of adrenaline.

He heard moans coming from the front of the jumper, and distantly, the echo of Elizabeth's frantic voice, calling for emergency teams. So, they'd made it back home, at least. As Sheppard's breathing rasped and faltered, the alluring comfort of home receded into the background.

Suddenly, Ronon was on him, grabbing his arm. The runner could convey his thoughts without uttering a single word. _What do I need to do?_

_Lord help us all, son._ Beckett wasted no time rolling Sheppard off his lap with the Satedan's help. Basic first aid was instinctual. He lifted Sheppard's neck and checked his respiration. None of the primary inspiratory muscles were working to expand his ribcage and create the negative pressure required for spontaneous breathing. He bent low and forced in a breath, watching for the upward movement of the ribcage, then he wiped John's blood from his lips as he felt for a pulse at the carotid. Tachycardic, but still there. Blood pressure was probably bottoming out, too. His own carbon dioxide sats would be a little high due to fear, but with each breath, it would get Sheppard's chemoreceptors working. He bent for another breath, and another until he lost count.

Finally, Ronon pushed him out of the way and he collapsed back against the seat, exhausted and slumping. He needed to find the trauma supplies, the oxygen and intubation kit, because lord knew how long it would take for a rescue. One doctor locked in a jumper with a boatload of patients and little to no supplies was grim, indeed.

After a moment's rest, Beckett scrambled up and smashed his head into the corner of the open panel Rodney had been working on. He grabbed onto it with his blood covered, sticky fingers until the vertigo stopped, then stumbled into the forward section, trusting that Ronon could support Sheppard for a few moments.

Immediately, he came upon his other nurse. She was bent sideways around the central console at an ungodly angle that the vertebral column and its stabilizing structures were not meant for. He reached down and closed her blankly staring eyes, not even bothering to check for a pulse. The pilot had been thrown out of his seat to impact with the forward screen, the force smashing his skull and leaving a pattern of red spattered across the clear crystal glass.

Rodney and Teyla had become wedged in front of the copilot's chair in a tangle of arms and legs. As they began to move sluggishly, he tried to still them with a touch and quiet word, not knowing what their injuries might be. Teyla was aware enough to acknowledge him with a slight nod, and Beckett was eased to see how quickly her own instincts kicked in when she turned to Rodney as he fussed unintelligibly.

Through the front window, Beckett could see internal structural materials and fractured pieces of Ancient writing from a few of the stairs in Atlantis' main control room that had collapsed and wrapped themselves around the jumper. Only small cracks of light shone through at odd angles where the staircase allowed scant illumination from above. In the shadows of the forward section, Beckett saw a flash of orange beneath the pilot's seat and he lunged for the trauma kit, rushing back to Sheppard and Ronon just as the rear hatch began to slowly break open, the ramp descending with a squeal of abused metal.

Light filtered into the dark jumper and medical personnel swarmed inside to triage the wounded. Beckett blinked and tried to readjust. As CMO, he needed to take control. He started barking orders, directing his crew, until someone latched onto his arm and led him from the jumper. He looked at his hands and his clothes. Was all of that blood Sheppard's, or was some of it his? He wasn't sure. He looked to the side a bit dazed. Zelenka was standing near the jumper's rounded bulkhead, staring at him with wide eyes, clutching a computer pad that was connected to an external panel with several sets of glowing cables.

Elizabeth stood nearby in heated discussion with Kavanagh, arms crossed in displeasure while the pony-tailed buffoon continued his tirade. Something about engine instabilities and explosive weapons, the simultaneous breakdown of multiple fail-safes, and the unfortunate timing of an extremely powerful shaped charge following the jumper through the wormhole.

When Elizabeth saw him standing there, outside the jumper, covered in blood, she held up a hand to stifle Kavanagh's rant and the American cut off with a frustrated sigh. "Carson?" she called out, head canted to the side. She moved toward him as if he were a frightened animal.

That was all he remembered before he hit the floor.

**TBC**...If you like this, let me know.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm back, with another chapter! Hope you like it...I still don't own any of this, I just play with the cheeky little buggers once in a while.

**Chapter 4**

Beckett opened bleary eyes, suppressing a moan at the slight headache. It took a few blinks before he recognized Elizabeth and Terry Martinez, one of the young medics, kneeling in front of him. He looked around. The control room was filled with both military and science personnel, scurrying around, trying to decide what was salvageable. They were organizing groups to clear debris and move the crashed jumper away from the main stairwell. Not only did it make it more difficult to descend from the upper floor and main control room, but it also blocked other jumpers from entering or exiting the gate.

Elizabeth smiled and nodded encouragingly at him, then her eyes slid to the side as she tapped her earpiece. She squeezed Carson on the shoulder before she stood and walked away, speaking to someone on the radio.

Zelenka was still at the hidden access panel he'd pried open on the outer fuselage of the jumper, fiddling with his handheld notebook, casting occasional nervous glances their way as Carson sat propped up against the cool metal bulkhead. Terry reached toward his forehead and he grabbed the medic's wrist to halt the movement. There were injured in the jumper, and he was here sitting on his arse, passed out for who knew how long. Carson clutched at a piece of the pitted, damaged exterior of the jumper beside him and started to lever himself up. Terry seemed ready to push him right back down, but Beckett wasn't about to be restrained. Terry finally relented, and with an unhappy expression, he reached for an arm to lift, then Zelenka appeared at his other side to help with a firm hand, pushing his rimmed glasses back toward the bridge of his nose. The Czech scientist looked like he wanted to say something, but he clapped his mouth shut.

Carson turned toward the jumper and leaned in as his vision grayed. He took a breath and shrugged the supporting hands away, concentrating on the tactile surface of the jumper's exterior to ground his senses. Another breath and he opened his eyes, drawing on every reserve of energy to take him around the back of the jumper and up the ramp.

Except for blankets covering the two bodies in the forward section, the interior was empty, the power still off. A splash of red colored the left bench seat where one of his nurses had hopefully managed to survive until proper help could arrive. But Beckett's eyes were truly drawn toward the crimson that stained the floor; the discarded, red-soaked bandages and gauze, the empty syringes thrown to the side along with failed IV lines and the remains of an intubation kit.

He spun around, reaching out a hand to grip the upper equipment rail as the grayness returned to his vision. Terry and Zelenka were standing right behind him, both looking like they were going to descend at a moment's notice if he faltered. He waved them off with his free hand.

The Czech scientist began talking in a quiet voice about the survivors being rushed away, and of somehow being comforted by the fact that Rodney had found enough strength to complain about his treatment, or lack of. They had left Terry behind and were sending another gurney right back for Beckett. Ronon would not leave the Colonel's side and looked ready to fight anyone who suggested otherwise. Then Zelenka glanced at the blood staining the floor and simply raised one shoulder as if he didn't know what to say any more.

_Damn._ Carson didn't have the luxury of taking up one of his own infirmary beds. They were already short one base physician, a close friend and colleague who had died an untimely death, and a good portion of his staff were presently offworld, helping a pre-industrial society with a mild contagion outbreak. The settlement was several hours walk from the Stargate, and with the state of the crash blocking half of the gate room, it would be impossible to descend a jumper down the central tower to retrieve them. Luckily, they still had Doctors Cole and Biro and their complement of military personnel had a few medics like Terry.

He released his fingers from the netting of the equipment bins and tested his balance, then pushed past the two men and hurried out of the jumper, the rubber soles of his boots squeaking with each rushed step. About half way to the infirmary, he found his way partially blocked by a gurney heading in the opposite direction and he pushed it aside. By the surprised looks on the faces of the two orderlies, he'd probably added a little exclamation of frustration, but he would have to save the apologies for later.

The infirmary was chaos with a capital C. The few beds not already taken up by the usual complement of minor injuries or illnesses, were now occupied by the victims of the jumper crash. Teyla was in one of the first beds, answering a medic's questions quietly while he performed the required examinations from head to toe. Ronon sat unhappily in a chair next to her, arms crossed tightly, a fresh bandage taped beneath his eye. His intense gaze never wavering from the back corner of the infirmary where Beckett was heading.

Rodney was a few beds down, an IV taped to his hand, and his arm being freshly bandaged by a nurse while Doctor Biro performed a neuro check. Atlantis' chief scientist and head complainer seemed to be responding to some of the questions with occational insults about Biro being a "real" doctor. But his voice was weak, his answers sounding pained and somehow confused when pressed for an answer. Rodney saw Carson out of the corner of his eye as he neared the bed and he tried to sit up straighter, snatching his injured arm from the nurse's grasp to push at Biro. She wasn't quick enough to match his rise off the bed, and he fell back, grabbing at his head and retching painfully. Biro expertly avoided being covered by the mess as they rolled Rodney onto his side and he threw up all over the bed and the floor. She promptly ordered a visit to the scanner for the physicist. As Beckett sailed past, Rodney managed to ask about Sheppard in a shaking voice.

_I just don't know, Rodney._

What Carson headed for, was the last station. It was surrounded by a flurry of activity.

A naso-gastric tube had already been threaded down Sheppard's throat to drain the blood that was collecting in his stomach. Doctor Cole was on the other side of the gurney, pushing the guidewire of a central line into the large vein beneath Sheppard's clavicle while one of the nurses stood ready to clear the blood from the site after she was finished. Another nurse was pressing down on the bandages that covered his abdomen, the fresh white material already showing spreading spots of red. He wasn't clotting, so there wouldn't be time to put him under the scanner. He was still loosing blood, and immediate exploratory surgery would be needed to start sewing up the internal bleeds and fix the lacerated and torn organs.

It was unnatural to see Sheppard so still. A man of boundless energy and enthusiasm. He could give Rodney a run for his money, although Rodney's energy stemmed from being high-strung, paranoid and slightly neurotic. Except for the steady rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator forced air in and out of his unresponsive lungs, Sheppard was almost lifeless, his skin drained of all color. A stark contrast to his unruly dark hair.

Cole connected the central line to several bags hanging behind the gurney. Fluids and blood quickly began to infuse down the tubing directly into Sheppard's circulatory system through the large vein in his chest, replacing some of the lost volume until they could prep the surgical suite.

Dr. Cole made an adjustment on the central line and moved back so the nurse could attend to the insertion site. It was at that moment she finally noticed Carson. She looked ready to send him away to his own infirmary bed, but some look must have passed between them, and she knew that he wouldn't rest with Sheppard in such bad shape and an infirmary full of patients. She smiled grimly as she hurried around the gurney toward the scrub room.

Carson was the best doctor on base, and that was why he was CMO, but he'd been injured himself in the crash. Even though an extra set of hands during Sheppard's surgery would be a great asset with such extensive wounds, he wouldn't put a patient at risk for that type of procedure. Surgeons had to be at their best, and not even a fistful of Tylenol, or a Band-Aid decorating his forehead would satisfy the requirements. He would be able to take on some of the less pressing cases after he cleaned up and relieved Doctor Biro for the assist.

He glanced down at the dried blood that coated his hands and clothing. Medical school taught you many things, including pulling reserves of energy from places you never knew you had. Something he didn't need to explain to Doctor Cole, a frequent migraine sufferer. Carson headed for a nearby sink to wash his hands, watching the water turn a gaudy pink as it flowed down the drain, then headed for Rodney's cubicle to relieve Biro for the surgery. He noticed one of Sheppard's arms hanging limply over the side of the gurney and closed his hand on the cool skin, smiling at one of the nurses as she managed the various tubes and lines that kept her patient alive. They were getting ready to move him toward the operating room.

He could imagine Ronon standing silent guard until someone forced the Satedan runner from the bedside to have his own wounds tended to, probably with a warning that he was only getting in the way. John Sheppard had many friends, including himself. But he was also his doctor. A duality he sometimes had trouble dealing with. He would have to do with simply being a friend. Gently, he eased John's arm back beneath the sheet before he headed for the medicine cabinet. He could put up with Rodney's antics better after he took some Tylenol to ease his slight headache. With a wry smile, he thought perhaps in this case, Rodney would prefer a Highland voodoo sheep shearer to a ghoulish "pseudo-MD" pathologist.

As alarms went off behind him, he immediately switched back into doctor-mode.

**TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

Share the whump, my lovelies. My beta was unavailable, so the choice was to just keep waiting or post...I took the plunge. So blame any mistakes on highonscifi, as everything after chapter 1 is her fault. ;-)

**Chapter 5**

Biro's feet clattered behind him, calling all available people 'on deck' and leaving the petite Julie, a capable RN, to handle Rodney's probable concussion and nausea all by herself. Medical personnel descended on Sheppard, pulling lines clear, and adjusting the angle of the monitor.

Carson immediately recognized the irregular wavy line of V-fib. Biro needed no prompting to hyperventilate, dialing the ventilator up to 100% O2 as he lunged for the paddles on the defibrillator cart behind him. Automatically, one of the nurses squeezed some conductive gel on the electrodes and Carson rubbed them together vigorously before placing them on Sheppard's chest. He waited for the machine to reach the lower charge for a first cardiovert attempt, made sure the ventilator had been switched to pause in its cycle, then leaned in to press the buttons as soon as everyone scooted back away from the bed.

Sheppard's body bucked off the table, the arm Carson had gently placed beneath the sheets moments earlier falling to the side once again with the force of the movement. He pulled the paddles away, heard the click of the ventilator being switched back on, and everyone watched the monitor in tense silence, waiting to see if Sheppard's heart would reset. The distinct waves of normal sinus rhythm crawled slowly across the screen before being replaced again by the short irregular lines. Carson increased the charge on the defibrillator for a second jolt while Biro filled a syringe with epinephrine should Carson's attempts to cardiovert fail.

A click to pause, a scurry of feet, and the pale body arched off the bed again, almost groaning with the abuse as if he were conscious. _Come on, lad, don't do this to us. _Carson knew if they lost Sheppard, they might lose the whole team.

Rodney shouted out in alarm from his bed nearby and the cry was followed by the stern voice of Julie and the sound of metal clattering to the floor. Beckett called over his shoulder for someone, anyone, to help her, and Ronon responded. Teyla tried talking to her teammate in soothing tones from across the aisle, but McKay seemed trapped in his own little world, a world where Sheppard was dying, and he was helpless to stop it. This time his intellect would count for nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Another reset on the defibrillator to the highest recommended charge and another shock. Biro drew closer to one of the ports on Sheppard's central line with her syringe of epinephrine. As Carson's vision narrowed down to the wave pattern on the monitor at the head of the bed, a nurse took the momentary pause to apply firm pressure on Sheppard's bandages.

One QRS complex...two QRS complexes scrolled across the screen, and then finally a steady sinus rhythm. Carson wasted no time making the decision to move while a tenuous stability had been achieved. Monitor wires were pulled from their plugs, the tube was unhooked from the ventilator and someone started bagging. Everyone grabbed onto the gurney to scramble like almighty hell toward the operating room.

A few moments later, Carson came back around the corner, looking at his hands. The hands he'd just washed clean of John Sheppard's blood not moments before the alarms had sounded. The Colonel's fragile hold on life now depended on someone else's skills and abilities. He turned toward the sink again, snagged a scrub top and a stethoscope from a metal supply shelf and shed his ruined, blood-stained t-shirt.

His body's senses were still a bit heightened by the adrenaline rush of dealing with Sheppard's condition as he walked over to Rodney's bed. Ronon was bent down, his hand on his teammate's shoulder. A man of few words, he was providing gentle restraint with the benefit of a touch that might be more soothing to Rodney than a general member of the infirmary staff. In any case, it was giving poor Julie a chance to clean up the mess Rodney'd made in his agitation.

Ronon drew in a breath and asked the one question that Carson didn't want to hear. He couldn't lie to them, Sheppard's condition was severe, but they would do everything possible to save him. The Satedan's hand fisted tighter into Rodney's shirt as the physicist's brow furrowed. He was already clutching the rails, drawing in fast, shallow breaths. His eyes were squinted shut and he refused to move his head, the hairs at the back of his neck and around his ears damp with sweat. He looked for all the world like moving his head would give him the bed spins and bring on another case of head-splitting retching and vomiting.

Carson nodded at Ronon and placed a hand on Rodney's other shoulder. Seemed a bit warm to the touch. Infection from a simple bullet wound as Rodney'd sustained shouldn't be building up a bacterial load this quickly. He flipped through the chart. He'd only had a few bullet fragments imbedded in the skin of his upper arm. They'd been easy to remove and the area had been well irrigated and dressed promptly.

Rodney squinted one eye open and unlatched his hand from the rails of the bed to flop his arm toward Carson's face, babbling something about the physician's forehead. The nurse gave her CMO a pointed look as he redirected the flailing limb with a sigh. Maybe it was time to look for that Band-Aid, or he'd never hear the end of it. He nodded at Julie as he began his exam of Rodney and she disappeared for a few moments, returning quickly with a swab of betadine and some supplies for the cut. In no time, his forehead was cleaned and properly bandaged. The search for the bottle of Tylenol for his headache would have to wait.

Rodney clamped his eyes shut again, and Carson took the opportunity to grab a digital thermometer. Not good, his temperature was up. Carson added the numbers to the chart and asked Ronon to step out as they pulled some rolling dividers around Rodney's bed. Rodney wiggled around like a newborn babe while they removed his BDUs. Sometimes they managed with just a gentle hand, other times they needed to attack the tough material with a pair of scissors; once or twice having to pause while the poor lad gagged and retched. This time it was only dry heaves that wracked his body, but when Carson was done with his examination, perhaps he could do something about that to make him more comfortable.

They placed sticky pads on his bare chest and attached the short lead cables before struggling to get him into his scrub top while maneuvering the IV in his hand before snapping up the shoulder. Rodney was settled back and the leads were pulled up over his shoulder and connected to the plug in the main cable. Julie folded one of the new plastic adhesive oxygen sat monitors over one of his fingers and the scrolling monitors at the head of the bed came to life. Beckett didn't like what he saw. This was more than a concussion.

As Julie wrapped a nasal cannula around Rodney's ears and set the flow, Carson grabbed necessary supplies and drew several vials of blood. Rodney's lack of complaint worried him more than anything else. He handed the vials to the nurse and asked her for a complete workup, also asking her to retrieve the bullet fragments from the treatment table and drop those off as well. It was just a suspicion at this point, but if he was correct, Rodney and Sheppard might have a difficult road ahead. As Julie rushed away, he began a new neuro assessment to compare to Biro's original exam. He gave Rodney an encouraging smile, fully expecting a slight drop in the GCS score.

* * *

He hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep at the desk in his office, head cradled on his arms, until someone shook his shoulder and called to him gently. He looked out across the infirmary. It was nighttime, and the lights were dim, except for the single backlights at the patients' cubicles. Julie handed him a data pad with Rodney's test results on it. Sheppard must still be in surgery, or it would have been Doctor Cole waking him up. Still, Julie looked worried.

He started paging through the information. Rodney's white blood cell count was over 10,000 and his creatinine levels were sneaking up a bit, so there was definitely some sort of bacterial or viral war waging in his system and something affecting his kidney function. It must not be transmittable, or Atlantis would have locked down.

Julie urged him to look at the final pages. There were a few extra notes, images and 3-D renderings from the materials the lab had run through Mass Spec. The first looked like a viral protein of some kind and could be responsible for the fever and changes in blood chemistry. Then he paged to the information on the bullet fragments, raising a brow at the added comments from Zelenka.

It seemed the interior casing of the bullet's elemental makeup had similar properties to other elements on Earth's periodic table, but the atomic mass was much heavier than any the Czech scientist had ever seen before. Earth scientists had to go to great lengths to create the heavy elements added to the end of the table, and many of them decayed quickly. Whether this metal was somehow naturally occurring somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy in a stable form, or whether it had somehow been specially produced to hit bone or other substantial structures within the body, then fragment to release the pathogen and toxic metal, he couldn't be sure. It would certainly ensure the death of a victim by one or both means without prompt medical care. In Rodney's case, the bullet may have impacted a nearby object before hitting him like shrapnel.

For now, they would have to treat their two patients symptomatically before more harm was done. The bio-lab could get started on analyzing the virus to come up with the most appropriate drugs to treat it, but sometimes that could take days or weeks. Valuable time, depending on how virulent a strain they were dealing with.

He grabbed for the phone to call the operating room, get an update on Sheppard and report his findings. Doctor Cole was not happy with the new information. They'd managed to stop the bleeding and remove the bullets and he'd finally started to improve marginally, but peritonitis from all of the lacerated abdominal organs was a sure bet, and he'd spiked a fever, not unlike Rodney. Whether from peritonitis, or from the pathogen, it was difficult to tell. They would have to send bloodwork and the bullets to the lab for examination. From the state of the bullets retrieved, though, it looked like a few of them were fragmented.

Carson hung his head for a moment and massaged his forehead before putting the phone back down with a click. Sheppard's chances were slim if he had to fight off not only the effects of major surgery and blood loss, but also had to deal with raging bacterial and viral infections plus heavy metal poisoning. Carson thought about ordering antivirals for Rodney, but it was possible that as his body fought the invading virus, he would develop antibodies that could be used to make a serum for Colonel Sheppard. It was a fine line to walk, but one that might just ensure survival for both if Rodney's symptoms remained under control. For the heavy metal poisoning, they would have to rely on the standard chelating treatment, which would bind with the unknown substance and remove it through the kidneys.

With Rodney's creatinine levels already creeping up though, the extra stress on his kidneys could be problematic. Carson might have to add dialysis to the treatment regimen to preserve kidney function. Another cross for Rodney to bear when he was all ready miserable.

He marked all of this down on the chart and added an extra note to keep close watch on Rodney's glucose levels. Multi-system organ failure, which is what both men could be headed for, was affected by insulin, and the scientist already had a problem with hypoglycemia. Luckily, Rodney had probably been exposed to a much smaller dose of toxins than Colonel Sheppard.

Carson pushed away from his desk and snagged his white coat from the back of his chair, shrugging into it. He paused at the door to his office and shook his head sadly. Even though they were surrounded by all of this grand Ancient technology, it was useless when they didn't know how the majority of it worked. In Sheppard's present state, he knew survival would be a bloody miracle. He walked out of his office to prepare his staff. When Sheppard arrived back on the ward, it would be a fight from beginning to end.

**TBC**...if you don't like it, let me know, more importantly, if you do like it, let me know. Reviews make me happy. Also, Shep fans, if you're still with me, Chapter 6 will be more Shep-central.


	6. Chapter 6

Notes: Thanks to everyone who was so kind with their reviews over this journey!

**Chapter Six**

Sheppard had arrived back at the infirmary a mess of wires and tubes, drain lines and bags of colored liquid. He was very pale but the flush of fever colored his cheeks. Carson could see all of the necessary information on the monitor screens, more than any doctor in any hospital on Earth could dream of seeing, but he still reached for the inside of Sheppard's wrist to check for a pulse, still wanting to give and receive that small bit of human touch.

John grew restless at the contact and he lifted an arm to swipe at the oxygen cannula strapped to his face. Carson grasped the searching fingers and settled the arm back on the bed. Sheppard had been in a lot of pain after the surgery, and they'd needed to give him several doses of fentanyl for pain and anti-nausea medications to bring his heart rate back down to acceptable levels. Broad spectrum antibiotics were fighting the peritonitis and Carson had added the same chelation treatment Rodney was receiving. He'd ordered antivirals to Sheppard's therapy and they were monitoring Rodney for an immune response, but it was still too soon to tell.

Even in the short amount of time the two men had been exposed to the virus, temperatures were rising quickly. The lab seemed to be fighting a loosing battle to come up with its own therapy in time, even with Carson adding his special knowledge of pathogens and gene therapies. Biro was now permanently ensconced in the lab when she wasn't resting, and the remainder of the staff would be working around the clock. Carson himself was either caring for Rodney and Sheppard, catching quick naps at his desk or swallowing down Tylenol with a cold, half-empty mug of tea for his persistent headache.

He could switch shifts with Doctor Cole every few hours, but ultimately, he felt the responsibility of the most critical patients landed on his shoulders. A personal choice, but he felt like he needed to be "on call" 24-7 at times like this. Even if he headed to his room to sleep, his radio would be on.

At some point, Elizabeth had been down for an update. The jumper crash had been removed from the gateroom for the most part, but the medical team helping with the contagion outbreak off world had now been deemed too much of a risk to return until they themselves were cleared medically at the alpha site. That left the present Atlantis medical staff to deal with the situation without relief available for the next few days at least.

Carson scribbled something down on Sheppard's chart and handed it to the nurse that was assigned to manage his medications and monitoring equipment for the present shift. She injected something into his central line and then rubbed a damp cloth across his forehead and neck. Sheppard startled and pushed her away from his neck, then curled in on himself as a spasm of pain cut through the incision site and the bruised muscles and internal organs.

They each grabbed a shoulder, and Carson spoke calming words, hoping to break through the fog of illness and delirium before Sheppard ripped his stitches. A moment before he ordered the nurse to draw a syringe of Valium, Sheppard fell back exhausted, fumbling a hand at his neck one last time before melting into the bed. Carson realized he was muttering something in a broken voice and he leaned closer, almost placing his ear to John's lips. It sounded like he was repeating..._no more bugs...hate bugs, _until his voice dropped off unintelligibly. Carson drew back and leaned on the side of the bed. Slowly, he dropped his head and closed his eyes. He himself had been responsible for part of that statement concerning the Iratus bug. The genetic experiment gone wrong.

A hand touched his, Sheppard's breathing increased and Carson's eyes flashed back up. John was scanning around the infirmary, his lids blinking slowly like a toddler fighting to stay awake. Then the hazel eyes stopped their searching when they recognized Carson. Before Carson could even tell him where he was or what had happened, the eyes had blinked closed.

* * *

Carson's hunt for a decent cup of hot tea was interrupted by a weak call from the infirmary and a stern warning from Julie, the lovely RN who had drawn the short stick in the nurses' lottery to spend the majority of her shifts with Rodney. Carson sighed and shuffled a few papers aside to set his mug down again on the corner of his desk. _All he wanted was a cup of hot tea._

Whether Rodney liked to complain in person to the man "running the show" or whether his fevered mind was more eased by having a friend at his side when he was truly sick and miserable, Carson wouldn't deny him that little bit of comfort. Sheppard on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the attentions of the nurses, at least while he was conscious. Carson drew on his utmost level of patience as he headed for the bed. Julie looked frazzled, her usually neat hair in disarray.

Rodney was tired of being pestered, he was tired of being poked and prodded, he was tired of being hot and nauseated. He was tired of being strapped to that dialysis thing. Most of all, he wanted to see Sheppard and be with the rest of the team in support. In this condition, he wouldn't even be able to sit up in a wheelchair. Carson looked at Rodney's temperature. Still high.

He doused a cloth in the cool water Julie had filled in a plastic basin and tried to cool the perspiration from Rodney's forehead, then he injected his IV line with another dose of anti-nausea med, knowing it would make him a bit sleepy.

Rodney fussed again, and Carson drew close, promising that Teyla and Ronon would watch over both of them. More importantly, the best way he could help Sheppard was to rest and fight off the infection so they could make a serum from his antibodies. It was probably a bloody lie according to the test results, but he had to remain positive that some solution would be found in time. Rodney finally let go and fell into a troubled sleep. Carson squeezed his shoulder before heading down to Colonel Sheppard's bed.

When Teyla and Ronon weren't sitting with Rodney, they were sitting with John, and right now, they occupied positions to either side of his bed. Teyla had pulled up a second chair to rest the foot she injured in the jumper crash, and Ronon looked for all the world like a statue, guarding the gates of a temple, brow furrowed, daring anyone to draw inside his sphere of influence without the correct password. As usual, when they were sitting with one teammate, they asked about the other. It was a constant game of squeaking musical chairs in the infirmary when SGA-1 was involved.

Beckett pulled up his own chair to bring him down to Teyla and Ronon's level, making the discussion more personal. Both Sheppard and Rodney were responding well to the chelation treatments. but the alien virus was still raging. Antivirals seemed to have no effect and every time Rodney mounted an immune response, the sneaky little buggers would synthesize a different protein coating and multiply even faster while his antibodies were still busy with the first and second forms.

Rodney had little tolerance for many of the procedures they'd been forced to put him through, but reminders of how his inconveniences could help his team leader and friend, seemed to sustain him for the time being. The support of his friends and the drugs they could give him to ease the symptoms would help get him through the worst of the ordeal. But they were running out of ideas and out of time.

Teyla gave him a polite thank you, but Ronon's eyes just flicked to Sheppard, over toward Rodney, then stared into the distance again.

* * *

The first call came at 4 am, well after Carson had sent Ronon and Teyla to bed for a proper night's sleep. He'd fallen asleep at his desk again, across Sheppard's chart when the alarms reached through and jolted him awake. Before he could even push out of his chair, a nurse was at his door. Sheppard's temperature had reached a dangerous level. Carson practically pushed all of the files from his desk in his haste to get up and out the door.

Rodney woke, confused at all of the activity and noise and Carson was surprised to see Radek sitting in a chair beside his bed tapping away quietly on a laptop. The Czech scientist was probably having trouble sleeping like everyone else right now.

Carson gave Rodney a stern order to stay put, followed by a remark to Radek that he would catch hell if he allowed his boss to get out of bed. Radek's eyebrows shot up as he looked at Rodney and then abandoned his laptop quickly on a bedside table.

Despite the regular dosing of antipyretics to lower his temperature, Sheppard was not responding. The numbers had continued to climb. In reality the danger was not only the temperature climbing too high, but it was also how fast it spiked that could cause a seizure. As Carson feared, as soon as he reached the bed, Sheppard's body was arching, his head digging back into the pillow, eyes rolled back.

A second nurse came skittering around the corner from the computer desk in the hallway as Carson placed his hand on Sheppard's chest. The muscles were rigid, his O2 sats dropping slightly, breathing was intermittent. One of the nurses maintained a patent airway and watched for signs of vomiting and aspiration while the other rushed away to get a cooling blanket. Carson palmed a vial of phenobarbital from the medication cart next to Sheppard's bed, snapped the cap off a syringe with a thumb, and inverted the vial to draw a dose. Then he injected the clear liquid into one of ports on the central line. Sheppard's fluttering eyes closed and his neck relaxed, the intercostals around his ribcage let hold their fierce grip and 02 sats improved. As he relaxed back onto the bed, the poor lad's left hand fisted into the sheets before he fell unconscious. Carson gently uncurled the clenched fingers as the nurse adjusted the nasal cannula that had been disrupted during the seizure. He studied the numbers on the monitors again. Their solution to the seizure was only temporary. Where the hell was that cooling blanket?

It was a little past 2 in the afternoon the next day when they had to put Sheppard back on the vent. His body was just shutting down, the bacterial and viral overloads poisoning his internal organs. Rodney wouldn't be far behind.

* * *

Doctor Cole had made her daily rounds and found Carson half asleep at his desk again, resting his head on his hand. She rattled the half empty Tylenol bottle at him and he startled awake, head slipping from its perch. She was frowning at him, studying the dark circles under his eyes and wondering how many of the pills he was still taking, seconds away from ordering him right to the scanner.

Before she could finish, It was Radek who rushed into Carson's office with a laptop tucked under one arm, hair wild, clothes rumpled, who started babbling almost too fast for the two physicians to understand. Carson shushed him and asked him to start again at the beginning.

Radek held the laptop out and placed his palm on its flat surface, starting with still barely concealed enthusiasm. It was something he hadn't thought of before. Something a basic computer repair technician would think of...when your computer is infected, and the virus is smart enough to recognize the anti-virus program and evade it by changing its form and multiplying over and over, you must download a virus program and rename it something the virus will not recognize. Then the program will clean the hard drive.

Carson sat up a bit straighter as he tried to apply the Czech's reasoning to their present situation..Could that work? Could they make the antibodies to the alien pathogen look like something else? Something the virus wouldn't recognize? He rushed past Zelenka and Doctor Cole toward the lab.

Once Doctor Biro caught onto the direction Carson was going, she had lab techs skittering this way and that, preparing everything they needed. The two doctors worked feverishly, knowing they were working against almost insurmountable odds. Several times, Carson had to stop and steady himself against the lab table, whether from exhaustion or something related to his constant headache...at this point...there just wasn't time to deal with it..._not enough time!_

Another slide under the microscope, another pipette, another failed batch, and the process repeated as a second ventilator was turned on in the infirmary and Rodney was added to the critical list.

Through it all, there was a never ending parade of people in the infirmary. Zelenka kept vigil by Rodney's bedside on several occasions, tapping on his laptop, giving updates on the daily work crews and experiments while he'd been filling in as head of the science department, He expected no answer from the unconscious man, he just hoped that somehow he was heard, and Rodney knew he wasn't alone. Sometimes, he'd lean in and quietly impart a bit of gossip about Kavanagh, knowing Rodney always enjoyed baiting and debasing the American scientist.

Elizabeth would visit both men, at first talking about her day as expedition leader, but it felt wrong, it felt too impersonal. On the next occasion, she was sitting next to Sheppard reading _War and Peace_, and when that got no response, she tried talking to him about Hail Marys, popcorn and ferris wheels, smiling when she received a twitch of an eyebrow.

Teyla and Ronon were almost constant fixtures, only leaving to eat and shower, sometimes falling asleep across their teammates, or climbing onto a nearby vacant bed. In a close knit community such as Atlantis, their constant presence in the infirmary would be tolerated under the circumstances. Rodney and Sheppard's lives were quickly fading out like flickering candles.

Carson took another swallow of tea to wash down the Tylenol, considering something more potent as he noticed the fine tremor in his right hand. He used his other hand to push another specimen onto the microscope's stage, adjusting the slide control on the side to increase the resolution. He leaned in, focusing until the slide sharpened into view. He blinked...blinked again; leaned back and rubbed his eyes, then leaned in again. _Bloody hell! That was it!_ He handed the slide to Biro as he felt himself slipping from the lab stool.

The next time Carson remembered opening his eyes, his headache was dulled to a slight ache instead of a constant pounding, and he felt warm fingers holding onto his hand. A slight roll of his head to the side, and he found Teyla nearby, a gentle smile on her face. "I am very glad to see you awake, doctor Beckett. We were all very worried."

A hand on his other arm and a squeeze brought his head rolling to the other side. The face blurred for a moment, but the red shirt, brown hair and slim profile soon materialized into Elizabeth. She leaned into his range of vision with an easy smile. "You did good, Carson. It worked. You finished in time."

"Barely." Sheppard's voice was hardly more than a rough whisper from across the aisle. But it held the undertones of a good-natured jibe between friends. Carson lifted his head a bit off the pillow and narrowed his eyes, raising one hand to rub at his face to clear his vision, not too surprised that his wrist was connected to an IV line snaking over the side of the bed.

Rodney and Sheppard were sitting up across the aisle, still connected to oxygen cannulas and untold wires and monitoring devices, but alive and well, and thank the lord almighty, on the mend. Carson relaxed back, sighing.

"Yeah, why don't you cut it a little closer next time, you Highland Hack."

Carson snorted happily. Rodney needed to get some new material, but he was happy to hear it just the same..

Ronon looked smug as he rested his boots on Sheppard's bed and leaned back in his plastic chair. "Told you the Doc'd be okay."

**Ende**

Well, there it is, one one-parter turned into a six-parter on the fly. Hope a few have enjoyed my second Atlantis attempt!


End file.
